Thanksgiving in Japan

I tried to celebrate Thanksgiving Day my first year in Japan but it didn't work out well. Thanksgiving, of course, is not a holiday in Japan and my job, six days a week, was more than full time. Not that I needed time to prepare a feast. I could neither find turkey for sale nor did I have an oven in which to roast one. Cranberries and sweet potatoes were also unavailable. Baking a pie without an oven was out of the question and while you could get pies in Tokyo, the bakeries of Shizuoka had only cake and pastries. My Thanksgiving meal ended up consisting of pan fried chicken with cooked daikon radishes over rice. I had invited some new Japanese friends over to dinner and I sensed they were disappointed, expecting the American Thanksgiving meals they'd read about in magazines. After some champagne, however, we soon got into the real spirit of the holiday: to be thankful for what we had, whatever that was, and celebrate with family, whomever that turned out to be.

Happy Bird Family Restaurant

Skylark is a popular family restaurant chain in Japan. I didn't go there for the best cooking, but, like Gaby, I could count on finding a clean Western style toilet inside.

from American Fuji, p. 123: "A waitress seated them at a booth looking out at the street. She placed laminated menus on the table and handed them wet finger towels packaged in plastic. Alex dropped his, scalded by its heat. He pointed to a picture of fried fish and cole slaw. After Gaby ordered, they gulped what little water fit around a glass full of thick ice cubes. Piped-in music played a peppy, repetitive tune of squeaky girl voices alternating with whistling. The table was lower than what Alex was used to. It was, he decided, like going to a Denny's specially built for children: everything smaller and higher in pitch."

Wet Trash Day

Here is garbage set on the street on "wet trash" day. This is a small green tea farm in Shizuoka--you don't usually see houses with that much land. The mirrors are necessary to navigate the narrow streets. The skull and crossbones with a fedora somehow looks insouciant rather than deadly.

When I developed this batch of photos, the shop owner wanted to throw this one away and give me a discount. He had a hard time believing I wanted to keep a photo of Japanese garbage.

Friday the 13th: Birth of a Novel

One Friday the 13th, as a college student with a summer job for a real estate agency, I got my boss's Cadillac in a parking lot fender bender. Except for that, it's been a lucky day for me. On Friday the 13th in September of 1991, I read an article in The Japan Times. The headline was "Funeral Industry Foresees Boom" and the story was about a starry-eyed entrepreneur who competed with expensive Buddhist funeral ceremonies by providing services with a touch of Hollywood--laser light shows and music. The owner even dreamed of someday sending ashes to the moon. As soon I read that, I began to conceive the character of Mr. Eguchi and started writing what was to become American Fuji.

After I posted this, I received a check in the mail!

Last Book Talk of the Year

Please join me at the Hollis Social Library on Thursday, November 12, at 7:00 p.m. to hear about some of the experiences you've read about in this blog, and see some items mentioned in the novel you can only see in person (such as McKenzie's Japanese textbook and Gaby's sandalwood fan). Free, open to the public, open to Q&A. I hope to see you there!

BURN & LEARN

In honor of International Time Travel Day (November 5) and its founder, I roll the clock back 17 years to Okinawa in 1992 and a rare glimpse of Eric Paul Shaffer, author of the just-released Burn & Learn in the middle of making sandwiches for a beach outing. Literature Sandwiches, a chapter in his brilliant and lively episodic novel, claims: "A sandwich in literature usually appears only as a structural device and hardly ever as an edible item on a menu of fiction, following the tradition of the many meals ordered in the movies and never eaten." His sandwiches, however, are not props--they are the real thing, to be chewed on, relished, and digested, same as Burn & Learn. Those of you who follow this blog know Eric as my Fuji Hiking Pal, Parking Sign Prankster, and photographer of many photos with me in them. Now, get to know him as a writer: startling, provocative, with mustard spread to the edge.

On Sara's Dove Bar Habit

My name--and method of eating mini-Dove Bar ice cream treats--has been immortalized on the cover of The American Mathematical Monthly (Nov 09). It turns out my little system was an interesting probability problem which my boyfriend and two of his math cohorts solved and published. You see, the dark chocolate covered ones only come in a box with half chocolate, half vanilla ice cream. I prefer vanilla, so if I draw a chocolate one from the box, I give it to Dave to eat and draw another for myself, which I will eat whether it's the superior vanilla or inferior chocolate. The computation determines how many chocolate bars per box I end up eating. For the solution, turn to p.831. As Dave said, "you create problems for me." With my name in his article on the cover of AMM, we are now officially famous.

Unlucky Ticket

And here's my losing ticket. I bet a hundred yen on racers 2 and 5 in the 5th race. The date is written year/month/day. The year is not the Western calendar year but the Japanese calendar year. Year 1 starts with each new emperor, so this was year 5 of the current emperor Akihito's reign, also known as 1993. It was July 10th, a typical muggy summer day in Shizuoka. If you have excellent vision, you might see a watermark pattern of yellow Mt. Fujis under the printing.

At the Track in Shizuoka

Here I am at Shizuoka's race track with a good friend, displaying my bet before the race. The race featured bicycles, not motorcycles as in American Fuji, but my description in Chapters 21 and 22 is much as it was: a large tunnel of concrete to enter and exit, hot metal benches, cigarette smoke, and that "abandoned plastic cup of beer" that Alex tripped over (p. 243). The atmosphere was friendly, and another (unseen) friend taking the photo won 2,000 yen which she spent on coffee and treats for the three of us. We enjoyed being "tough" women, venturing into a decidedly male venue.

Interview with Motherlogue

Click on the title to read my latest interview, with Liz Sheffield on her blog Motherlogue. Liz moved to Japan in 1993, the year I left, and lived in Sapporo until 1995; in 1997 she went back for another year on the island of Shikoku. She grew up in Portland, Oregon (Gaby's home town) and now lives in Seattle (Alex's home town) so she has personally experienced all the geography of American Fuji! We talked about preparing to live in Japan, meeting yakuza, the process of writing the novel, and what I miss most.

U Mass Lowell Reading Oct. 28

70 people came to my and David Daniel's reading on a wet and rainy afternoon in Lowell. The audience was mostly students, but also some professors and published local authors. Mega-doumo to all who came, and to the Literary Society and English Department for sponsorship and support.

Octopus Balls

Eguchi says eating takoyaki is a tourist requirement for a visit to Japan. Here is a behind-the-counter look at how deep-fried octopus balls are made. I admire the hand labor that goes into chopping, shaping, and coating the octopus tentacles, and how quickly these women worked in such a small space. I tried takoyaki more than once, but found them too tough and rubbery to chew well enough to swallow. They are about the size of golf balls, and close to what I would imagine a golf ball would taste like. Not for me.

Marubatsu's Pond

This is one of the ponds that inspired my fictional pond at Marubatsu's temple Gizenji.

from American Fuji, p. 351: "The water was opaque pea-green and looked like paint. The surface, perfectly still. A herd of tiny granite islands jutted up through the pea soup, some rusty with moss, others bare."

It's interesting that Japanese readers find the character of Marubatsu a familiar type of person they readily recognize, yet my American readers think he's the most unrealistic of my characters. The only thing about him that's inauthentic is his name. I named this Buddhist priest after a kind of test: true (maru) false (batsu).

"When You're a JET, You're a JET all the way . . ."

Click the title and scroll down to page 9 for a recent interview written by Veronika Ruff, a New York JET (Japan English Teachers) alum who lived in Shizuoka City. We agreed Shizuoka was not the Tokyo experience! It was a pleasure talking to her and finding out how much we had in common.